A Star Is Born (Turner Classic Movies)
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And that’s how A Star Is Born was reborn. Hollywood is a town of second acts, and my mother had more comebacks than anyone. Now, with most of its original footage restored, Mama’s big movie was positioned to make a stunning comeback of its own.
In the meantime, the Academy was preparing a publicity campaign for the announcement of the restoration, to be followed by the fanfare for a “world re-premiere” at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. A vintage movie like A Star Is Born would not ordinarily be given the big-screen theatrical treatment outside of museums, archives, and revival theaters; however, Abel Gance’s silent masterpiece, Napoléon (1927), had set an important precedent two years earlier. The film had been reconstructed with a new musical score composed and conducted by Carmine Coppola (father of Francis Ford Coppola), and the movie was given its American premiere at Radio City Music Hall in 1981, where it sold out the 6,000-seat theater during its run. The Academy felt A Star Is Born should be afforded the prestige of Napoléon, and believed they could fill the 6,000-seat theater for one night.
The film would then travel to Washington, D.C.; Oakland, California (Oakland was selected, rather than San Francisco, because it could offer the art-deco glamour and the size of the Paramount Theatre); Beverly Hills (at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater); Chicago; and Dallas. A co-sponsor, with the Academy, would host the event in each city: in New York City, the Museum of Modern Art; in Washington, the American Film Institute; in Oakland, the Pacific Film Archive; in Beverly Hills, Warner Bros., Inc.; in Chicago, the Chicago International Film Festival; and the co-sponsor in Dallas would be the USA Film Festival. All proceeds would go to film preservation projects at each institution.
Esther washes her hair on the roof of the rooming house.
Esther calls out to Norman from the roof of the rooming house.
Esther waits by the Oleander Arms swimming pool for a telephone call from Norman Maine that never comes.
Esther in the rooming house.
Richard Amsel, the gifted graphic designer, was selected by Warner Bros. to create a new poster for the restored film. He chose the arresting, touching, and lovely image of my mother’s hands framing her face in the number “Someone at Last” when she imagines her “big, fat close-up.” (The still photograph from this scene had, by this time, become an iconic Garland image.) Amsel heightened and brightened its coloration, changed the costume from the oversized man’s pink dress shirt to the navy-blue dress from “The Man That Got Away,” and added silvered searchlights to back it all up against a starry Hollywood night sky. He made the familiar image more sophisticated, more contemporary, and sexier.
The finishing touches to sight and sound were wrapped up while Gene Allen worked with the tinting of the still photographs that would be used to fill in the gaps of missing footage. It was decided that an intermission would immediately follow “Born in a Trunk,” to give the audience a break as the running time was extended. With this, Haver and his team were virtually done. Tickets to attend the film at Radio City Music Hall ranged in price. Haver and a young editor named Craig Holt put together a special preview premium—with a fifty-dollar admission—to attend a cocktail reception prior to the film in the lounge of Radio City Music Hall. After the film and the evening’s speeches, the audience was given a rare treat: old newsreel footage of the 1950s glam-fest that was the original Pantages premiere in Hollywood.
A throng of fans and press, along with a long line of limousines, greeted my sister, Liza, and me as we passed under the marquee that read, “The Academy Foundation Presents A Star Is Born.” Our mother’s costar, James Mason, joined us, and special guest Lillian Gish arrived. Also in attendance were Helen Hayes, Andy Warhol, Candice Bergen, Patricia Neal, and many other supportive faces. I’m told that it was the most exciting night in Ron Haver’s life. In New York magazine, film critic David Denby described the evening as “the most stirring event of the summer movie season foundering in mediocrity,” and noted the electric atmosphere created by “6,000 adults concentrating on a thirty-year-old film that meant something to them emotionally.”8
Academy president Fay Kanin was eloquent in her introduction: “All art forms are buffeted by time, but ours has proved unexpectedly ephemeral. Museums can show us sculpture from fifteen hundred years ago and beautifully preserved books and paintings.… But most of the movies made before 1920 have already been lost to us.… The nation’s film archives have done a heroic job… but they need help and they need it soon.”9 I was proud to be a small part of this groundbreaking moment for the burgeoning movement of film preservation.
I shared a few thoughts as well, confiding to thousands, “All my life I’ve wanted to see this movie the way my mother and father made it.”10 My dream came true that night. The thundering applause started early in the evening. The audience truly appreciated the plot-holes that were finally filled, and the music that was lost, now restored. The clapping and cheering seemed to continue without a pause for more than two minutes after my mother, as Esther Blodgett, stepped out onto an enormous stage into the spotlight and carefully began, “Hello, everybody,” then continued proudly, “This is Mrs. Norman Maine.”
“Hello, everybody. This is Mrs. Norman Maine.”
My father was in attendance that night as well. One memory I will treasure always is how Liza and I held each other close and cried for nearly twenty minutes in a dressing room backstage after the screening. For both of us, Mama was right there on the big screen just as we remembered her in life, and her masterpiece had finally been restored to its full glory. It was such a cathartic experience for my family. The entire evening was a blur of excitement, relief, and tears. How could such a great movie have been so poorly handled? My father, in his later years, gave this explanation, “We did too much of everything. Too much movie and too much music. It was good too much.”11
The inclusion of still photograph montages in the reconstruction was controversial. To this day, the sudden switch to sepia-toned images is accused by some of confusing or jolting viewers out of the movie as it strives to convey the missing film footage to synchronize with the complete soundtrack. Critic Janet Maslin, writing for the New York Times in 1983, noted that the nine scenes that combine dialogue, stock footage, and still photographs “… bring the film to a temporary halt. The still photographs, in particular, have a candid and almost melancholy feeling, in contrast to the more glamorous material that surrounds them. It’s a measure of the film’s enormous seductiveness that these interruptions seem so startling. A movie that cast less of a spell could tolerate this kind of intrusion far more easily.”12
A Star Is Born’s reconstruction became a template for film restoration of this kind. The Museum of Modern Art’s two major D. W. Griffith restorations, Way Down East (1920) and Intolerance (1916), restored in 1984 and 1989, respectively, used photographs and frame enlargements to bridge missing sequences, as did the reconstruction of Frank Capra’s Lost Horizon (1937) in 1986. Haver wrote about his mission to reconstruct the film, first in American Film magazine in an article called “A Star Is Born Again: The Classic Restored” in the July/August 1983 issue, creating interest in the film and his methods. Several years later, he expanded upon his article and wrote a book, A Star Is Born: The Making of the 1954 Movie and Its 1983 Restoration, published in 1988.
I had finally met Ron Haver, the tireless detective behind the reconstruction, the night before the big premiere, at a press reception at Quo Vadis restaurant. I was there, escorted by my father. Kitty Carlisle Hart, widow of Moss Hart, was there, too. After the New York City screening, my family attended the first of the four public screenings at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, held on July 19, 1983. The opening night was a star-filled event. Lillian Gish graced the occasion, as did Gregory Peck. To my delight and thrill, so many who worked on the film attended and showed their support, including Gene Allen, Sam Leavitt, and Lucy Marlow.
James Mason attended the screening, as well as a champagne recep
tion beforehand. I remember him being asked about A Star Is Born that night. He considered Norman Maine among his greatest performances. When asked if he might have won an Oscar in 1955 had Academy members seen the full-length version, he replied, “I think so, yes.” Mason was enjoying himself, but my father was having an uneasy time of it, feeling his prominent role in the original production had been minimized. He felt invisible at these events. But with the eventual sales to television and home video came some sense of satisfaction that the film was no longer a financial failure. According to him, “The film would earn back every penny, plus an ongoing profit.”13 Galvanized by the success of A Star Is Born, my father licensed footage from The Judy Garland Show and television special clips to make possible Judy Garland: The Concert Years, a ninety-minute documentary first broadcast on PBS in 1985.
I was overjoyed at the positive reception A Star Is Born received, and felt ready to reveal more about my mother. I had never really shared my memories publicly, with the exception of Gerold Frank’s exhaustive 1975 biography of my mother, Judy. My entire family cooperated with that book. However, years later, when I decided to write an autobiography, Me and My Shadows: A Family Memoir, published in 1998, my father resented that I wanted to tell my story. I was of the opinion that this was my story. If my father, Liza, or Joe wanted to write their story, that was fine by me and they would have my full support. My father, however, did not see it that way. “Don’t fuck with my property,” he told me, and threatened to sue me. It was clear to me that envy was at the root of his anger. He had hoped to write a book, too, but was unable or unwilling to see it through to completion (My father’s autobiography, begun in the 1960s and left unfinished at the time of his death, was published in 2017.) The fireworks that ensued between us were like the Fourth of July. There was no litigation or any literary work forthcoming from my father; he was simply angry that I had done what he had wanted and failed to do.
Adding fuel to the fire was the adaptation of Me and My Shadows into a major network event, telecast by ABC across two consecutive nights: Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows (2001), starring Judy Davis. When that film won five Emmy Awards, the jealousy nearly choked my father. Sadly, he always blamed his failures on anyone and everyone else, rather than holding himself accountable. We didn’t speak to each other for several years. We did make tentative amends before he died, but there was still a rift between us. We left messages on each other’s answering machines, but did not see each other in person. I tried to love whatever was left of him that hadn’t been strangled by his overwhelming sense of lost opportunity. My father died on September 15, 2005, in Los Angeles, at the age of eighty-nine. My brother Joe lived with him and served as his primary caregiver in his last years.
I’ve forgiven my father long ago. I’ve forgiven his bitterness in blaming Hollywood—which possessed him—instead of looking at himself and realizing he couldn’t save Mama or rescue the film. When you point a finger at someone, you have three fingers pointing back at yourself. A Star Is Born haunted him and was a desperately painful memory for him. He had seen the hard work and the perfect final product. To have that vision cut and to slash away my mother’s great film career and excise my father’s desire to prove himself as a producer sent him on a journey of always blaming someone else. I excuse my father’s behavior as I know how much he loved Mama. His brash bravado, his lovable and charming personality, turned to sour victimization, like Norman Maine with his career. It’s very sad for me.
I had not seen A Star Is Born theatrically—on a big screen with a large, appreciative audience—since the time of the 1983 reconstruction when I was thirty years old. The film changed for me once again when I saw it at the Turner Classic Movies Classic Film Festival on April 22, 2010. This was the network’s first event of this kind, and they chose Judy Garland and A Star Is Born to be the opening night gala presentation at the Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, several blocks away from the site of the original premiere. The movie had been buffed and shined with digital sound, new color corrections, and a critical reputation as a classic film that dated back twenty-seven years. I was now a mature adult, and the movie had been restored once more to such a degree that I watched it with new eyes. Better still, I was able to take my two children.
I was thrilled to share with my son, Jesse, and my daughter, Vanessa, the world premiere of the new digital version of my mother’s musical masterpiece. Thanks to digital technology, the ravages of time were removed from the film and the 1983 reconstruction efforts to reinstate the cuts made shortly after the film’s 1954 premiere were further remedied. It was quite an event for us all.
With my children Vanessa Jade Richards and Jesse Cole Richards at the opening-night gala premiere of a newly restored edition of A Star Is Born at the first Turner Classic Movies Film Festival, April 2010. Photo by WENN Ltd./Alamy Photo.
For many years, A Star Is Born was an upsetting experience for me. The film’s story, and its underlying message about fame and addiction, hit too close to home. The massive disappointment of the film at the time hardened my mother’s heart about Hollywood. The enthusiastic reaction of my children spurred me to open up the photographs and memories about the film I have carefully kept and privately collected for decades. Now I could watch and discuss the film with a more optimistic outlook. Mama’s movie had not only been restored to its orignial glory, but had touched and brought joy to so many people. In a way, the accolades the film was receiving decades later helped to soothe the pain it had caused me in the past.
A Star Is Born is the quintessential Hollywood story of a young star on the rise, and her star-lover-mentor destroying himself. While she is on the way up, he is on the way down. All the while, the cruel seesaw of the Hollywood machine is driving them both. Looking back, I see A Star Is Born as the glorious high of the latter part of my mother’s career. It also marked a bitter low point, and signaled the beginning of the end. Esther and Norman’s extreme high-and-low story was a poignantly fitting parable of my mother’s life and an ideal star vehicle for her persona. But its failure also hurt her deeply and showed her that Hollywood held a grudge, that her hoped-for cinematic comeback was not meant to be. It was a deeply personal project for her, and I now feel the same way about the movie. Like me and my brother Joe, A Star Is Born was a product of Judy Garland and Sid Luft. It is part of our family. It is the most touching, exhilarating, and unforgettable home movie imaginable, and I’m so glad it exists. After I was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2013, I was on my way to my first appointment with Dr. David Agus to discuss a treatment strategy. I was terrified and scared out of my wits. On the way, I stopped at the Lazy Daisy, a hippy-dippy café on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. I looked up and, behind the coffee cans, saw they had a 1983 Richard Amsel-designed poster from A Star Is Born behind the counter. I saw that as a sign that Mama and Dad were on my shoulders, looking over me. I knew then I was going to be all right.
A Star Is Born is not just a film. It’s a vision of a whole world, an accurate depiction of how Hollywood as an institution functions. Despite ostensibly being a musical, the emphasis is not on music. The film is as concerned with genuine emotions as it is with incorporating song and dance. The plot is the centerpiece of the film and the songs illustrate the plot. It is a complete reversal of the typical film musical up to that time. Before then, many musicals were light comedies with a plot loosely strung together by songs, the “backstage musical” was popular in the 1930s, but Mama was weary of lightweight plots by the time of Summer Stock and wanted something different for her future film work.
The Wizard of Oz and A Star Is Born are arguably my mother’s two greatest films. The Wizard of Oz is exceptional—a film that beautifully conveys the wonders, as well as the anxieties, of childhood. It is a perfect film musical with an impeccable score highlighted by “Over the Rainbow,” which always will be associated with my mother. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, Esther Blodgett/Vicki Lester in A Star Is Born is earnest,
innocent, and appealing, yet displays a strong inner quality that allows her to persevere.
Today, my mother’s film is readily available for anyone who wishes to see it in a version as close to the original version as possible.
Tributes to my mother in A Star Is Born are not hard to come by these days, but I was especially touched by the praise given to her and her favorite film by colleagues over forty years after her death. Mickey Rooney, who starred or appeared in ten of my mother’s films, maintained, “Judy gave the finest performance of her career in A Star Is Born. It was the perfect showcase for all her God-given talent.”14 Margaret O’Brien, who played her younger sister, Tootie, in Meet Me in St. Louis, observed, “A Star Is Born is one of the greatest performances ever captured by the movies. Judy did everything in A Star Is Born. She sang, and she danced, she did comedy, and she gave a magnificent dramatic performance.”15 Angela Lansbury, who costarred as Em, the dancehall girl, in The Harvey Girls, as well as appearing in Till the Clouds Roll By (both 1946) offered, “Judy was an extraordinary talent who made several classic movies, but—as a performance—A Star Is Born is her masterpiece.”16 Finally, Lauren Bacall volunteered, “A Star Is Born is Judy’s greatest performance.… I still haven’t forgiven the Academy for not honoring her brilliant work in that movie.”17 John Fricke summed up the prevailing view in his 2011 illustrated filmography, Judy: A Legendary Film Career: “A Star Is Born somehow withstood all its excesses, pro and con, to acquire and maintain instant stature as Judy Garland’s preeminent motion picture performance.”18
Two months after the TCM Classic Film Festival presentation, on the forty-first anniversary of my mother’s passing, the newly digitized version was released to home video, where it remains available as a DCP (Digital Cinema Package) to be shown theatrically, on home video, for downloading, and streaming. Today, my mother’s film is readily available for anyone who wishes to see it in a version as close to the original version as possible. What could be more rewarding for me and for every fan of the movie?